JASPER GIVES AN ACCOUNT OF HIS VISIT TO BLACK HAWK.--AUNT INDIANA'S WIG.
Aunt Indiana, Jasper, John Hanks, and young Abraham Lincoln sat between
the dying logs in the great fireplace and the open door. The company was
after a little time increased for Thomas Lincoln came slowly into the
clearing, and saying, "How-dy?" and "The top of the day to ye all," sat
down in the sunshine on the log step; and soon after came Dennis Hanks
and dropped down on a puncheon.
"I think that you are misled," said Jasper, "when you say that Black
Hawk was born at Kaskaskia. If I remember rightly, he said to me: 'I was
born in this Sac village. Here I spent my youth; my fathers' graves are
here, and the graves of my children, and here where I was born I wish to
die.' Rock Island, as the northern islands, rapids, and bluffs of the
Mississippi are called, is a very beautiful place. Black Hawk clings to
the spot as to his life. 'I love to look down,' he said, 'upon the big
rivers, shady groves, and green prairies from the graves of my fathers,'
and I do not wonder at this feeling. His blood is the same and his
rights are the same as any other king, and he loves Nature and has a
heart.
"It is my calling to teach and preach among the Indians and new towns
of Illinois. This call came to me in Pennsylvania. God willed it, and I
had no will but to obey. I heard the Voice within, just as I heard it in
Germany on the Rhine. _There_ it said, 'Go to America.' In Pennsylvania
it said, 'Go to the Illinois.'
"I went. I have walked all the way, teaching and preaching in the log
school-houses. I sowed the good seed, and left the harvest to the
heavens. Why should I be anxious in regard to the result? I walk by
faith, and I know what the result will be in God's good time, without
seeking for it. Why should I stop to number the people? I know.
"I wanted an Indian guide and interpreter, and the inward Voice told me
to go to Black Hawk and secure one from the chief himself. So I went to
the bluffs of the Mississippi, and told Black Hawk all my heart, and he
let me preach in his lodges, and I made some strong winter shoes for
him, and tried to teach the children by signs. So I was fed by the
ravens of the air. He had no interpreter or runner such as he would
trust to go with me; but he told me if I would return in the May moon,
he would provide me one. He said that it would be a boy by the name of
Waubeno, whose father was a noble warrior and had had a strange and
mysterious history. The boy was then traveling with an old uncle by the
name of Main-Pogue. These names sound strange to German ears: Waubeno
and Main-Pogue! I promised to return in May. I am on my way.
"If I get the boy Waubeno--and the Voice within tells me that I will--I
intend to travel a circuit, round and round, round and round, teaching
and preaching. I can see my circuit now in my mind. This is the map of
it: From Rock Island to Fort Dearborn (Chicago); from Fort Dearborn to
the Ohio, which will bring me here again; and from the Ohio to the
Mississippi, and back to Rock Island, and so round and round, round and
round. Do you see?"
The homely travels of Thomas Lincoln and the limited geography of Andrew
Crawford had not prepared Jasper's audience to see even this small
circuit very distinctly. Thomas Lincoln, like the dwellers in the
Scandinavian valleys, doubtless believed that there "are people beyond
the mountains, _also_" but he knew little of the world outside of
Kentucky and Illinois. Mrs. Eastman was quite intelligent in regard to
New England and the Middle States, but the West to her mind was simply
land--"oceans of it," as she expressed herself--"where every one was at
liberty to choose without infringin' upon anybody."
"Don't you ever stop to build up churches?" said Mrs. Eastman to Jasper.
"No."
"You just baptize 'em, and let 'em run. That's what I can't understand.
I can't get at it. What are you really doin'? Now, say?"
"I am the Voice in the wilderness, preparing the way."
"No family name?"
"No. What have I to do with a name?"
"No money?"
"Only what I earn."
"That's queerer yet. Well, you are just the man to preach to the
uninhabited places of the earth. Tell us more about Black Hawk. I want
to hear of him, although we all are wastin' a pile of time when we all
ought to be to work. Tell us about Black Hawk, and then we'll all up and
be doin'. My fire is goin' out now."
"He's a revengeful critter, that Black Hawk," said Thomas Lincoln, "and
you had better be pretty wary of him. You don't know Indians. He's a
flint full of fire, so people say that come to the smithy. You look
out."
"He has had his wrongs," said Jasper, "and he has been led by his animal
nature to try to avenge them. Had he listened to the higher teachings of
the soul, it might have been different. We should teach him."
"What was it that set him against white folks?" asked Mrs. Eastman.
"He told me the whole story," said Jasper, "and it made my heart bleed
for him. He's a child of Nature, and has a great soul, but it needs a
teacher. The Indians need teachers. I am sent to teach in the
wilderness, and to be fed by the birds of the air. I am sent from over
the sea. But listen to the tale of Black Hawk. You complain of your
wrongs, don't you? Why should not he?
"Years ago Black Hawk had an old friend whom he dearly loved, for the
friendships of Indians are ardent and noble. That friend had a boy, and
Black Hawk loved this boy and adopted him as his own, and became as a
father to him, and taught him to hunt and to go to war. When Black Hawk
joined the British he wished to take this boy with him to Canada; but
his own father said that he needed him to care for him in his old age,
to fish and to hunt for him. He said, moreover, that he did not like
his boy to fight against the Americans, who had always treated him
kindly. So Black Hawk left the boy with his old father.
"On his return to Rock River and the bluffs of the Mississippi, after
the war on the lakes, and as he was approaching his own town in the
sunset, he chanced to notice a column of white smoke curling from a
hollow in one of the bluffs. He stepped aside to see what was there. As
he looked over the bluff he saw a fire, and an aged Indian sitting alone
on a prayer-mat before it, as though humbling himself before the Great
Spirit. He went down to the place and found that the man was his old
friend.
"'How came you here?' asked Black Hawk. But, although the old Indian's
lip moved, he received no answer.
"'What has happened?' asked Black Hawk.
"There was a pitiful look in the old man's eyes, but this was his only
reply. The old Indian seemed scarcely alive. Black Hawk brought some
water to him. It revived him. His consciousness and memory seemed to
return. He looked up. With staring eyes he said, suddenly:
"'Thou art Black Hawk! O Black Hawk, Black Hawk, my old friend, he is
gone!'
"'Who has gone?'
"'The life of my heart is gone, he whom you used to love. Gone, like a
maple-leaf. Gone! Listen, O Black Hawk, listen.
"'After you went away to fight for the British, I came down the river at
the request of the pale-faces to winter there. When I arrived I found
that the white people had built a fort there. I went to the fort with
my son to tell the people that we were friendly."
"'The white war-chief received me kindly, and told us that we might hunt
on this side of the Mississippi, and that he would protect us. So we
made our camp there. We lived happy, and we loved to talk of you, O
Black Hawk!
"'We were there two moons, when my boy went to hunt one day,
unsuspicious of any danger. We thought the white man spoke true. Night
came, and he did not return. I could not sleep that night. In the
morning I sent out the old woman to the near lodges to give an alarm,
and say that my boy must be sought.
"'There was a band formed to hunt for him. Snow was on the ground, and
they found his tracks--my boy's tracks. They followed them, and saw that
he had been pursuing a deer to the river. They came upon the deer, which
he had killed and left hanging on the branch of a tree. It was as he had
left it.
"'But here they found the tracks of the white man. The pale-faces had
been there, and had taken our boy prisoner. They followed the tracks and
they found him. O Black Hawk! he was dead--my boy! The white men had
murdered him for killing the deer near the fort; and the land was ours.
His face was all shot to pieces. His body was stabbed through and
through, and they had torn the hair from his head. They had tied his
hands behind him before they murdered him. Black Hawk, my heart is dead.
What do the hawks in the sky say?'
"The old Indian fell into a stupor, from which he soon expired. Black
Hawk watched over his body during the night, and the next day he buried
it upon the bluff. It was at that grave that Black Hawk listened to the
hawks in the sky, and vowed vengeance against the white people forever,
and summoned his warriors for slaughter."
"He's a hard Indian," said Thomas Lincoln. "Don't you trust Black Hawk.
You don't know him."
"Hard? Yes, but did not your brother Mordecai make the same vow and
follow the same course after the murder of your father by the Indians? A
slayer of man is a slayer of man whoever and wherever he may be. May the
gospel bring the day when the shedding of human blood will cease! But
the times are still evil. The world waits still for the manifestation of
the sons of God; as of old it waits. I have given all I am to the
teaching of the gospel of peace. The Indians need it; you need it, all
of you. You do the same things that the savages do."
"Just hear him!" said Aunt Indiana.--"Who are you preachin' to, elder?
Callin' us savages! I'm an exhorter myself, I'd like to have you know. I
could exhort _you_. Savages? We know Indians here better than you do.
You wait."
"Let me tell you a story now," said Thomas Lincoln.
"Of course you will," said Aunt Indiana. "Thomas Lincoln never heard a
story told without telling another one to match it; and Abe, here, is
just like him. The thing that has been, is, as the Scriptur' says."
_AN ASTONISHED INDIAN._
"Well," said Thomas Lincoln, "I hain't no faith at all, elder, in
Injuns. I once knew of a woman in Kentuck, in my father's day, who knew
enough for 'em, and the way that she cleared 'em out showed an amazin'
amount of spirit. Women was women in Daniel Boone's time, in old
Kentuck. The Injuns found 'em up and doin', and they learned to sidle
away pretty rapid-like when they met a sun-bonnet.
"Well, as I was sayin', this was in my father's time. The Injuns were
prowlin' about pretty plenty then, and one day one of 'em came, all
feathers and paint, and whoops and prancin's, to a house owned by a Mr.
Daviess, and found that the man of the house was gone.
"But the wimmin-folks were at home--Mrs. Daviess and the children. Well,
the Injun came on like a champion, swingin' his tommyhawk and liftin'
his heels high. The only weapon that the good woman had was a bottle of
whisky.
"Well, whisky is a good weapon sometimes--there's many a man that has
found it a slow gunpowder. Well, this woman, as I was sayin', had her
wits about her. What do you think that she did?
"Well, she just brought out the whisky-bottle, and held it up before
him--_so_. It made his eyes sparkle, you may be sure of that!
"'Fire-water,' said she, 'mighty temptin'.
"'Ugh!' said the Indian, all humps and antics and eyes.
"Ugh! Did you ever hear an Injun say that--'Ugh?'
"'Have some?' said she.
"Have some? Of course he did.
"She got a glass and put it on the table, and then she uncorked the
bottle and _handed_ it to him to pour out the whisky. He lost his wits
at once.
"He set down his gun to pour out a dram, all giddy, when Mrs. Daviess
seized the shooter and lifted it up quick as a flash and pointed to his
head.
"'Set that down, or I'll fire! Set that bottle down!'
"The poor Injun's jaw dropped. He set down the bottle, looked wild, and
begged for his life.
"'Set still,' said she; and he looked at the whisky-bottle and then
slunk all up in a heap and remained silent as a dead man until Mr.
Daviess came home, when he was allowed to crawl away into the forest. He
gave one parting look at the bottle, but he never wanted to see a white
woman again, I'll be bound."
"You ridicule the Indian for his love of whisky," said the Tunker, "but
who taught him to love it? Woe unto the world because of offenses."
"Hello!" said John Hanks, starting up. "Here comes Johnnie Kongapod
again, from the Illinois. I like to see any one from Illinois, even if
he is an Indian. I'm goin' there myself some day. I've a great opinion
of that there prairie country--hain't you, elder?"
"Yes, it is a garden of wild flowers that seems as wide as the sky. It
can all be turned into green, and it will be some day."
Aunt Indiana greeted the Indian civilly, and the Tunker held out his
hand to him.
"Elder," said Aunt Indiana, "I must tell you one of my own experiences,
now that Johnnie Kongapod has come--the one that they bantered me about
over to the smithy. Johnnie and I are old friends. I used to be a kind
of travelin' preacher myself; I am now--I go to camp-meetin's, and I
always do my duty.
"Well, a few years ago, durin' the Injun troubles, there was goin' to be
a camp-meetin' on the Illinois side, and I wanted to go. Now, Johnnie
Kongapod is a good Injun, and I arranged with him that he should go with
me.
"You didn't know that I wore a wig, did ye, elder? No? Well, most people
don't. I have had to wear a wig ever since I had the scarlet fever, when
I was a girl. I'm kind o' ashamed to tell of it, I've so much nateral
pride, but have to speak of it when I tell this story.
"Johnnie Kongapod never saw a wig before I showed him mine, and I never
showed it to him until I had to.
"Well, he came over from Illinois, and we started off together to the
camp-meetin'. It was a lovely time on the prairies. The grass was all
ripe and wavin', and the creeks were all alive with ducks, and there
were prairie chickens everywhere. I felt very brisk and chipper.
"We had two smart horses, and we cantered along. I sang hymns, and sort
o' preached to Johnnie, when all at once we saw a shadow on the prairie
like a cloud, and who should come ridin' up but three Injuns! I was
terribly frightened. I could see that they were hostile Injuns--Sacs,
from Black Hawk. One of them swung his tommyhawk in the air, and made
signs that he was goin' to scalp me. Johnnie began to beg for me, and I
thought that my last hour had come.
"The Injun wheeled his pony, rode away, then turned and came dashin'
towards me, with tommyhawk lifted.
"'Me scalp!' said he, as he dashed by me. Then he turned his horse and
came plungin' towards me again.
"Elder, what do you think I did? I snatched off my bonnet and threw it
upon the ground. Then I grabbed my wig, held it up in the air, and when
the Injun came rushin' by I held it out to him.
"'There it is,' said I.
"Well--would you believe it?--that Injun gave one glance at it, and put
spurs to his horse, and he never stopped runnin' till he was out of
sight. The two other Injuns took one look at my wig as I held it out in
my hand.
"'Scalped herself!' said one.
"'Took her head off!' said the other. 'She conjur's!'
"They spurred their horses and flew over the prairie like the wind.
And--and--must I say it?--Johnnie Kongapod--he ran too; and so I put on
my wig, picked up my sun-bonnet, and turned and came home again.
"There are some doughnuts, Johnnie Kongapod, if you did desert me.
"Elder, this is a strange country. And don't you believe any stories
about honest Injuns that the law condemns, and that go home to see their
families overnight and return again; you will travel a long way, elder,
before you find any people of that kind, Injuns or white folks. I know.
I haven't lived fifty years in this troublesome world for nothin'.
People who live up in the air, as you do, elder, have to come down. I'm
sorry. You mean well!"
Johnnie Kongapod arose, lifted his brown arm silently, and, bending his
earnest face on Jasper, said:
"_That_ story is true. You will know. Time tells the truth. Wait!"
"Return in the morning to be shot!" said Aunt Olive. "Injuns don't do
that way here. When I started for Injiany I was told of a mother-in-law
who was so good that all her daughters' husbands asked her to come and
live with them. They said she moved to Injiany. Now, I have traveled
about this State to all the camp-meetin's, and I never found her
anywhere. Stands to reason that no such story as that is true. You'll
have to travel a long way, elder, before you find any people of that
kind in these parts."
Whom was Jasper to believe--the confident Indian or the pioneers?